a walk for the New Year

I felt the need for a rite of passage, something to mark the moment, a way to spend those few days when, summoned by bells, my colleagues would be back at work.

The pilgrimage that Chaucer paints, from Southwark to Canterbury, was the inspiration for this walk. We intend to do the Rochester to Canterbury stretch as an independent but organised walk, so Southwark to Rochester was the plan for January.

I planned the route, with Google and walkit.com, booked the acccommodation, packed my new backpack - a gift from colleagues- and set out ...

Followers

Sunday, January 6, 2008

The first half, at least, of the walk was dispiriting, and would need good company and better planning – accommodation, places to visit – to make it in any sense a pilgrimage. But the last miles over the downs from Cobham to Rochester were wonderful walking, and it is that walk that we shall do again as the prologue to Act Two, Rochester to Canterbury ...

1 comment:

I stumbled upon this by accident from the link posted in the Humprhey Lyttleton group but I thought it was a beautiful piece of writing (with wonderful photographs too)- I love reading about solo walking, as there is something so unique about the freedom of the walker, and I thought this was an uplifting example. Best wishes with Rochester to Canterbury (if that has not taken place already) and the rest of your retirement.

This blog was written retrospectively from notes taken at the time.If you would prefer a more traditional narrative sequence, you can find it here.The photographs can be enlarged by clicking on them - they were all taken by me during the journey, except for the first two, for which I am grateful to Hugh Homan.